7 Advice Acronyms That Will Change Your Life

Adages, platitudes and mottos can be a little off-putting, not to mention cliche, when applied to real-life situations. The last thing thing you want to hear when you get laid off is, “Everything happens for a reason.” Does it? Well, maybe it does, but keep that to yourself while I’m drowning in the dregs of self-pity trying to figure out how to pay my rent. We think we might have discovered the antidote to stale what-doesn’t-kill-you-makes-you-stronger wisdom and played out lifestyle abbreviations (YOLO, we’re looking at you): advice acronyms. Why? They’re not annoying or overused, and more importantly, the mere mention of an acronym when you’re in a hairy situation reminds you not to take yourself so seriously (DTYSS!). Really, this is key to everything. The minute you DTYSS, you’re on the road to feeling better. Below are some advice acronyms that have soothed us in our lowest moments and revolutionized our way of dealing with unavoidable life crap. Feel free to use any of them or make up your own.

DTYSS (Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously): When you get in that place of taking the minutiae of your life far too seriously, this is a good reminder that you are one ingrown hair on the ass of the universe, so really, you don’t need to freak out over the snippy email your boss sent you because she is also an ingrown ass hair.

PAFU (People Are Fucked Up): This was appropriated from a college friend of Ami’s. The sooner you indoctrinate your soul with it, the better. People are just weird and sometimes do crazy things that defy all explanation. You’ll be surprised how much peace of mind (and free time!) you’ll have when you chalk that insane blind date you went on up to PAFU.

FWPT (Fuck What People Think): Winona relies on this advice acronym so heavily that she made it her screensaver. It’s a potent little reminder that you can’t please everyone, haters gonna hate, so you might as well just do your thing and ignore what everyone else in the world thinks of it.

INP (It’s Not Personal): This advice acronym has literally saved Ami from all kinds of angst and distress. We tend to take other people’s behavior toward us so personally, when 99.9999999 percent of the time the reason your friend left your birthday party in a rush without saying goodbye is because she had to poop really bad — not because she was mad at you.

M2B (Meant To Be): Winona uses this one approximately 10 times a day to denote crazy coincidences or moments of serendipity that are impossible to wrap your brain around. Can be applied to everything from meeting your soul mate to finding the last pair of leopard print pumps on the clearance rack — in your size.

NMP (Not My Problem): Before you dive deep into someone else’s business, check yourself with these three letters — more often than not, you’ll realize it’s not your problem and not your responsibility to fix it. Best to focus on your own shit because God knows, that needs fixing, too.

ALWHEO (At Least We Have Each Other): For all those situations in life where you feel like you literally could not survive without the support of a good friend, coworker, sister, parter or whatever. Best said out loud and pronounced “ALWHEEEE–OOOOOOH!” like a soccer announcer after a goal.